by Seb Spence
“They’re going ahead as planned.”
Vaughan mulled over this new development, and as he did so he began to pace about the kitchen. Eventually he stopped and spoke. “This could make things awkward. Lukasz has been up north checking everything is ok at the departure point. We met up in Stirling and drove down from there earlier this evening. On the way, we passed several police patrols and also a checkpoint. I think your RAF men have almost certainly tipped off the authorities. We’re going to have to change our route north, which means it’s going to take longer. Travelling at night is a slow process these days so the plan is to set off at dawn tomorrow and travel in daylight. We need to get to our destination by 10.30am or we’ll miss the rendezvous with the submarine, so there’ll be little time to spare. I think we can just do it, though, if we’re not held up significantly en route.”
The front door opened and two more figures stepped in. Grace recognised one as Lukasz. He was wearing a British Army private’s uniform but had no cap on. The other wore a camouflage smock and carried a steel helmet under his arm.
“Ah gentlemen! Come in. Vivian, Miss Harrison, may I present Hauptmann Drechsler. He is in charge of the escort they have sent to ensure we get safely to our rendezvous tomorrow. He and his men parachuted in less than an hour ago. We picked them up in the lorry not far from here.”
The man in the camouflage outfit faced Vivian Adair and gave a slight bow. “It’s an honour to support your mission, Miss Adair. We have been told the importance of the operation you have been carrying out.” He then turned to Vaughan: “My men will take turns standing guard through the night – at any time there will be four of them on watch.”
“Excellent, Herr Hauptman. Tell them to be vigilant: I’m certain the security services are close on our tail. Vivian tells me that John Elliott and two members of his team were killed earlier today just south of here.”
“That is unfortunate. So only Miss Adair will be leaving on the U-boat?”
“Yes,” she confirmed, “I was in contact with the Hamburg station earlier tonight – they said that now Elliott was dead, I was to return alone.”
Lukasz had been standing by in silence during these exchanges, and Grace noticed that his impassive gaze was fixed on her. He seemed unmoved by the news of Elliott’s death.
“What is the plan for Miss Harrison after the rendezvous?” he interjected. “She was to have returned to London to work with Hugo.”
“Once Vivian is safely away, Miss Harrison can go with you back to London.” Grace winced when she heard this: she detested Lukasz, who in her view was a ruthless and chilling assassin.
Vaughan continued: “Just how we employ her talents when she returns there, I’m not sure at the moment. We’ll have to consider that at a later juncture.”
“You’re right,” Lukasz said, a faint smile having appeared on his lips. “At the moment there are more pressing issues. What about the man with the cut hand? They need to clean his wound.”
“Ah yes! That was bad luck,” Vaughan said looking at Vivian Adair. “One of Hauptman Drechsler’s men landed on a barbed wire fence and gashed his hand quite badly. I assume there’s a bathroom in this place?”
“Yes, upstairs.”
Vaughan turned back towards Lukasz. “Get someone to bring him over here – they can use the sink in the bathroom.”
“And what do you want done about the uniforms?” Lukasz asked. “Should the men get into them now?”
“Certainly! Hauptman Drechsler, hidden behind the bales of straw in the barn you will find a crate containing camouflage oversuits bearing the insignia of the Royal Netherlands Brigade – a Free Dutch unit fighting on the British side. Lukasz will show you where the crate is. You and your men should put these outfits on over your own uniforms. There are some berets that can be worn as well. Then, arrange for a detail to transfer any weapons and equipment remaining in the drop canisters to the crate and load it into the back of the truck. Once this is done, I’d advise you and your men to get some rest. We leave at first light tomorrow, 05.50 hours.”
Drechsler bowed stiffly and then both he and Lukasz left. Vaughan went over to the kitchen table, laid his cane down on it and began to examine the map that had been spread across its surface. “I suppose I’d better start planning an alternative route north. I had intended just to continue up the A68, but I think that’s out of the question now. We’ll have to head west and then swing north.”
The door opened and two of the Brandenburgers entered. Grace observed that, like Drechsler, they were wearing camouflage smocks. One of the men was wearing his steel helmet and she noted that on the side facing her it bore a Nazi eagle emblem. He was carrying a box with a red cross on it and was supporting the other man, who had his right hand wrapped in a blood-soaked bandage.
“Use the sink in the bathroom upstairs,” Vaughan told them, pointing above to the first floor. They disappeared up the staircase.
Vaughan’s mask of bonhomie began to slip back into place. “They’re superb troops, you know, these Brandenburgers, accidents notwithstanding – ideal for this sort of operation. They are all fluent in several languages, as well as being highly trained, proficient in the use of a range of weapons, and totally committed. The Germans call them the ‘Firemen of the Front’ as they’re always being sent to places where there is some emergency. It’s just as well Elliott arranged for this escort. I have a feeling we’re going to need them.”
“Are they really necessary?” Vivian Adair asked in a low voice. “Can’t Lukasz and I just drive up by ourselves? Surely that would be less conspicuous.”
“Too risky, I’m afraid. The police have your description and will be on the lookout for a woman in a car, possibly travelling with others; they won’t be looking for a lorry load of Dutch squaddies.”
#
Once the two Brandenburgers had dealt with the injured hand and returned to their comrades resting in the barn, Vaughan suggested to Grace and Vivian that they should all get a few hours sleep themselves. He opted to stretch out on the sofa in the parlour, while Grace went upstairs to the small, spartanly-furnished spare room at the back of the farmhouse. Vivian Adair went up with her and retired to the bedroom where she had taken her transmitter and other cases earlier.
Grace stood in the doorway of the spare room and surveyed the interior: there was a chest of drawers with a cracked ewer and bowl on top; an upright chair; and a brass bedstead that took up most of the room. The mattress was stained and no bedding was evident apart from a pillow and a folded grey blanket that had been stacked at the foot of the bed. The room had a damp smell that reminded her of mushrooms. Still, she was too tired to care. She laid the blanket out over the mattress, placed the pillow on it and then switched off the light. Too exhausted to change out of her clothes, she just kicked off her shoes and lay down on top of the blanket. Before long, she had fallen into a restless sleep punctuated with vivid and disturbing dreams.
5.
Wednesday, 21st May, 1941, 04.30hrs: Stirling Castle
The room where General Cunningham had earlier held his briefing had been transformed into an operations centre and now buzzed with activity. At desks and tables around the room, fifty or so uniformed personnel from different branches of the services were working on directing the huge manhunt: organizing roadblocks; processing the reports that were coming in from patrols; moving detachments of troops to locations where they might be required for searching the hills and moors; coordinating the spotter aircraft that would be watching from the skies after daybreak, and the naval units that would be patrolling the coast. Cunningham himself was still present and, standing near the door, was conversing with a uniformed police inspector who had just come in to give the latest report from the Borders.
Gathered below the large map on the wall, Barton, Moncur and Minton were discussing with a naval liaison officer probable locations for the submarine pick up. The remit of this officer was to keep the Navy informed of any developments that could e
nable them to locate and destroy the submarine sent to collect Cobalt. He was also to pass on to Cunningham’s team any reports of submarine activity off the Scottish coast, as this might point to where Cobalt was heading.
Suddenly, Cunningham’s voice thundered round the room. “What in God’s name are you waiting for man? Check it out immediately – this could be the lead we’ve been looking for. Send search teams to every farm in the area. We can give you as many men as you need.” This tirade was addressed to the police inspector he had been speaking to; red faced, the man walked smartly out of the room after the outburst. Cunningham went over to join Minton’s group.
“Unbelievable! A report came in six hours ago about two women seen driving a black Hillman near St. Boswells. The police have done nothing about it – they were going to wait until morning to investigate. You see what I mean Minton? If we hadn’t come up here to direct operations in person, nothing would be getting done properly.”
“Who made this sighting?” Minton asked, wondering how reliable the report might be.
“Some man on the outskirts of St Boswells. Apparently, he was in his local last night, and there was a lot of talk about the police patrols in the area. When he heard they were looking for two women in a black Hillman, he immediately phoned his local police station. He told them he had been gardening at the front of his house around 4.30 in the afternoon and saw two women in a black car – possibly a Hillman – heading towards Kelso. I’d wager it’s them. The infuriating thing is that there can’t be more than a couple of dozen farms between St Boswells and Kelso – we could have had them all searched by now if the damn police had moved when they got the report. But no! That inspector has just told me they didn’t have the manpower and he thought, in any case, they couldn’t make a proper search of outbuildings and precincts in the dark. I tell you Minton, if we weren’t here on site supervising things, this whole operation would be a shambles.”
6.
Wednesday, 21st May, 1941, 0510hrs: Monksford Farm, near St Boswells
Although several hours had in fact gone by, it seemed to Grace that her head had barely touched the pillow before she was roused by a noise from outside the farmhouse. It sounded like a car drawing up. Had her room not been at the back of the farmhouse, she would have got off the bed and looked out the window to see what was going on, but there was no way she could get to the front of the house without running the risk of disturbing the other two occupants. She lay awake for what she guessed must have been ten or fifteen minutes, straining to hear further sounds, but there were none. She began to wonder if she had really heard a car pull up, or if she had only dreamt it. She was just drifting off to sleep again, when creaking on the stairs warned her that someone was coming up. Soon, there followed a sharp rap on the bedroom door. The light was switched on and Vaughan entered.
He spoke in a low but urgent voice: “Rise and shine, Miss Harrison, rise and shine! It’s time to go.”
Grace, blinking in the light, looked at her watch: it was 5.22am. “I thought we weren’t leaving until daybreak.”
“Something’s come up. We need to be on the road straightaway. Go out to the lorry now. Don’t bother taking your case, we’re travelling light.”
Grace got up immediately, unlocked her case and took out the money and fake ID that Elliott had given her. Then, after pulling on a cardigan, she went downstairs and was about to go out when she noticed Vivian Adair sitting in an armchair in the parlour. She was staring down at the floor, and on her lap she clutched the briefcase that Grace had given her. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she looked very tired.
“Are you all right, Vivian? You haven’t been up all night, have you?”
“I’m fine,” she responded without looking up.
“What’s happening? Why are we leaving early?”
There was a long pause before she replied. “A police patrol drove up to the farm about fifteen minutes ago. We need to get going before more appear.”
“What happened to them?”
Vivian Adair ignored the question and stood up. “Come on, we’d better go.”
Emerging from the front door, they became aware of rustling noises and the sound of steel studded boots on the cobbles of the farmyard. As their eyes became accustomed to the semi-darkness of the pre-dawn, they made out a group of shadowy figures moving at the rear of the lorry. Grace deduced that the Brandenburgers were climbing on board. She looked round for the car she had heard draw up, but there was no sign of it. Presumably it had been hidden somewhere, perhaps in the barn. She followed Vivian Adair over to the lorry, where they found Vaughan standing by the tailboard. He chivvied them along: “Come on ladies, look sharp!”
“Where do you want us?” Vivian Adair asked.
“Lukasz is driving; Hauptman Drechsler and I will be in the cab with him. You two are in the back with the men. We’ll be travelling with the rear canopy flaps down so that no-one will be able to see inside the back of the lorry. Go right to the far end. If it looks as if we’re going to get stopped, I’ll knock on the rear window of the cab as a sign that you should conceal yourselves. In that event, there are a couple of tarpaulins on the deck of the lorry – get under them and stay there until we give the all clear.”
“Which route are you taking?”
“We’ll be heading west at first, through Peebles to a place called Carnwath. We’ll strike north from there. It’ll add half an hour to our journey time, but that won’t be a problem provided we’re not held up en route.”
In the back of the lorry, running down each side, were two slatted benches, and positioned midway between these was the crate holding the weapons and equipment transferred from the drop canisters. It was a large wooden crate – six foot long, two foot wide and about waist height – and had been positioned so that it extended lengthways down the lorry from the tailboard. The Brandenburgers seated themselves on the benches, so that they were facing one another across the crate.
Once the last of Drechsler’s squad had embussed, Vaughan helped the two women climb up into the lorry. To get to the far end where the tarpaulins were, they had first to squeeze between the seated men and the crate. Grace went right to the back and sat down on the offside by the cab. She noted that she could see into it through its rear window, for the canopy flap at the cab end had been pulled aside. Vivian Adair, still holding the briefcase, sat down beside her in silence.
“Where are we going?” Grace asked her in a low voice.
“North,” was the terse reply.
Almost immediately, the engine was started and the lorry moved off, turning in the farmyard before heading back down the unmade road.
For the first part of their journey, they sat in darkness and, apart from a few brief, whispered exchanges, none of the men talked. Grace, though not a fluent German speaker, had a working knowledge of the language and understood most of the remarks she caught – they were mainly complaints about the Dutch uniforms they were having to wear on top of their own. The Brandenburgers found the extra layer of clothing restricting, and it was also making them hot.
About half an hour after they had set off, one of the men sitting by the tailboard pulled back – just a little – the rear canopy flap at his side, and Grace caught a glimpse of the dawn sky. They were driving up a hill at the time and through the wedge-shaped opening he had created, she saw a reddish sun rising above a distant forest. The sky was pink, and the clouds, suffused with orange light, seemed as if they were on fire. In the rosy glow coming through the opening, she could make out the faces of the men sitting on the bench opposite her – they were all looking pensively towards the triangle of light.
The man holding back the flap turned and, smiling, addressed the others in a low voice: “Rot scheint die Sonne!” This seemed to cause some amusement, though Grace could not see why. The Brandenburger sitting next to Vivian Adair issued a muted command to shut the flap and be quiet. Grace guessed he was probably an NCO.
#
The first hour a
nd a half of the journey was fairly uneventful. They passed a couple of police patrols, but these had shown no interest in the lorry. However, just before 7 o’clock, about fifteen minutes after passing through Peebles, they came to their first checkpoint. The lorry slowed down and joined the end of a queue of half-a-dozen cars.
There were three policemen manning the roadblock: two were checking papers, the third was sitting in a patrol car parked on the nearside verge. Vaughan knocked vigorously on the rear window of the cab, and hurriedly the two women lay down on the floor of the lorry and were covered with the tarpaulins.
Vaughan watched as the two officers on the road meticulously checked the papers of the people in the leading car and then examined its interior and boot.
“This is a nuisance,” he observed. “At the rate they’re going, it’ll take at least ten or fifteen minutes for us to get through.”
As he moved on to the next car in the queue, one of the policemen doing the checks looked down the line of vehicles to the lorry and then called out something to his colleague sitting in the patrol car. The latter got out, walked over to the other side of the road and turned to face the lorry. He then pointed directly towards the cab and with his other arm began to beckon Lukasz to move the lorry out into the oncoming lane.
“The idiots,” Vaughan said in a low voice, smiling, “they’re waving us through.”
Lukasz gave the constable a thumbs-up sign as he drove by him.
“This is too good to be true,” Vaughan continued gleefully as they set off at speed. “They’ll be giving us a motorcycle escort next. I told you they wouldn’t be looking for a lorry with army types in it.”
7.
Wednesday, 21st May, 1941, 07.30hrs: Stirling Castle
Barton was getting restless. For an hour now, along with Minton and Moncur, he had been sitting at a table in the large room that General Cunningham had commandeered for his operations centre, and during that time very little had happened. Minton was using this slack period to look through the MI18 file on Cobalt that Cunningham had given him the previous day and was writing down points to explore when he was finally face to face with her in the interrogation room. Moncur had spent the time idly observing what was going on about him but soon got bored with that and was now sitting with his head thrown back, staring up at the ceiling and lost in a reverie.
